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| Gulf
Relief News |
| Mandi
Hardy
Writes from The Gulf Coast |
Hello
All.
I wanted to let you know that we have arrived in Biloxi and have
already been out talking with people and viewing the devastated
area. I am posting photos from our journey on my website (not as a
sale thing...just for your interest). Unbelievable what we are
seeing, all these weeks later. www.photobymandi.com
- click view proofs and type in Biloxi1 for the first day, Biloxi2
for the second and so on.
I am also keeping an online journal on myspace if you're interested.
http://blog.myspace.com/35910920
All my love,
Mandi. |
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| Seaville
Church
- Mission of Mercy |
MISSION
OF MERCY
By MICHAEL MILLER Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, November 22, 2005
UPPER TOWNSHIP - The Rev. George Lynch steeled himself for the
devastation he would see in hurricane-ravaged Mississippi.
He wasn't prepared for the gratitude.
Lynch and 16 other members of the Seaville United Methodist Church
returned from a weeklong mission to help shingle roofs and put up
wallboard in a small town outside Biloxi, Miss. The team spent
nearly a week in this town made a shambles by Hurricane Katrina.
The church members wore T-shirts identifying themselves as recovery
workers so they could move freely around police and National Guard
soldiers who were leery of looters.
Locals thanked them wherever they went.
"People would walk up to you when you were stopping to get gas.
My wife would be in Wal-Mart getting food to cook for our team.
People would stop you and say, 'Thank you for coming. Thank you for
being here for us,'" Lynch said.
The 17 church members accomplished what they hoped, shingling two
roofs on two houses and putting up wallboard in four more. Lynch
said the damage was hard to fathom.
"There are some blocks that were just leveled - blocks and
blocks of homes," he said.
Lynch took photographs during his stay. The damage was
indiscriminate. One brick church stood nearly unscathed next to
dozens of homes that were flattened.
"We had a very emotional week. A lot of ups and downs," he
said. "People you talked to, their stories. Sometimes you just
had to stand there and cry."
One grief-stricken man related how the flood unearthed the body of
his late wife in a cemetery where just months before he had buried
her. He had to watch her casket drop into its grave for the second
time.
The team drove past a church that was barely standing. The windows
were missing. But inside they could see a lone woman sitting in a
chair. So they stopped. She was supervising a clothing drive inside
the shell of a church.
"She said they were going to rebuild," he said.
The team drove past wrecked home after home, many bearing
spray-painted marks. The marks were left by federal rescue workers
indicating a body was inside, Lynch said.
In one photo, a team is working outside a battered home surrounded
by a thick haze. Lynch said workers in Biloxi are getting rid of
debris the only way they can - by burning it.
Now the church is organizing a second trip in March. Lynch said he
has no doubt he will find enough volunteers to go. Half of the
returning team has offered to go back, he said.
"I think all of our lives have been changed completely by
this," Lynch said. |
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